February 13, 2019
As House Oversight and Reform Committee lawmakers gear up for investigations into the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s response to catastrophic hurricanes in 2017, FEMA Administrator Brock Long on Wednesday announced his departure: “While this has been the opportunity of a lifetime, it is time for me to go home to...

January 31, 2019
FROM NEXTGOV
Less than a week after President Trump ended the longest-ever government shutdown, he suggested he is willing to force another partial government shutdown on Feb. 15 if lawmakers don’t provide funding for a wall along the Southwest border. Or perhaps he will declare a national emergency. What he's not willing...

January 31, 2019
Less than a week after President Trump ended the longest-ever government shutdown, he suggested he is willing to force another partial government shutdown on Feb. 15 if lawmakers don’t provide funding for a wall along the Southwest border. Or perhaps he will declare a national emergency. What he's not willing...

December 28, 2018
FROM NEXTGOV
Government shutdowns are expensive. For government workers, the costs are personal—the mortgage payments, school tuition and utility bills will keep coming, even if paychecks are disrupted. Feds may eventually be compensated for lost wages (Congress has authorized retroactive pay for furloughed workers during past shutdowns), but if the shutdown drags...

December 28, 2018
Government shutdowns are expensive. For government workers, the costs are personal—the mortgage payments, school tuition and utility bills will keep coming, even if paychecks are disrupted. Feds may eventually be compensated for lost wages (Congress has authorized retroactive pay for furloughed workers during past shutdowns), but if the shutdown drags...

December 27, 2018
Perhaps he got carried away in the euphoria of the moment. Or perhaps he was just voicing a wish (it’s the season of wish lists, after all). But when President Trump told U.S. troops during a surprise Christmas visit to Iraq that he was giving them a 10 percent pay...

December 21, 2018
What seemed unlikely a week ago appeared far more likely on Friday morning: a partial government shutdown that could last “for a very long time,” President Trump threatened in an early morning tweet. Trump was emboldened by the passage of a continuing resolution in the House Thursday evening that would...

November 26, 2018
Break out the champagne: Earlier this month, the Defense Department produced its first departmentwide financial statement audit. Ever. For an entity that traces its roots to 1789 and whose books have long been impenetrable to armies of auditors, even a failing grade is cause for positive recognition. While the audit...

November 18, 2018
Like the rest of society, the federal government is composed of haves and have-nots—those agencies that are funded through the remainder of fiscal 2019, and those that are operating on stopgap funds set to expire on Dec. 7. While the departments of Defense, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Energy,...

August 31, 2018
It’s a ritual only a wonk (or a federal employee) could fully appreciate: Every year since 1994, the president, by the end of August, must submit to Congress a plan for paying federal employees in the following fiscal year. That’s what President Trump did yesterday. This “alternative” pay plan is...